Once A Tale (MXM, BXB)

Briar Rose

Once upon a time, a king and queen learned the hard way to always have enough cutlery on-hand to account for guests.

For, if you invite twelve magical fairies to celebrate your daughter's birth but don't invite the thirteenth due to a lack of plates... well, wouldn't have it been better to forgo your own cutlery and flatware instead?

But, no—

Instead of giving up their golden knives and forks (quite a useless metal, really, gold is, quite soft and not at all practical) they thought instead that surely we just won't invite him and everything will work out brilliantly.

That thirteenth fairy in question arrived, uninvited, just in time to curse their newborn to die by the pricking of a spindle's needle. An extreme reaction to someone not inviting you to a party, but the person in question was that kind of extreme man. The twelfth fairy, yet to give their blessing on the child, reduced that death sentence to one hundred years of sleep (why not one? ten, maybe? oh well).

Time came and went and, true to form, that princess found her spindle in a kingdom completely bereft of them—which meant someone wasn't doing their job—and not just the princess Briar Rose but the entire castle fell into a hundred's-year sleep. Everything, from pigeons to leaves to cooks about to box the ears of a wincing kitchen assistant, everything fell asleep where it was.

One hundred years later, a handsome princely chap came waltzing into the palace, smooched the princess Briar Rose and lifted the curse.

But don't kiss people without their consent.

We don't care about them, though.

How about that kitchen assistant about to get his ears boxed?

"Gah!" yelped Hugh as a meaty fist sailed past one of his ears.

Cook, red-faced and furious, glowered at the ineffectiveness of his punch and reared back to take another one. Hugh was quick, used to being speedy to dodge trouble, and ducked this one as well, making a mad dash to the kitchen doors.

"Hugh, get the hell back here, or I swear!" Cook roared.

"See you later, boss!" Hugh called over one shoulder, booking it down the corridor.

'It was just a bit of supper,' he thought petulantly, oblivious to the fact that he'd just been roused from a hundred-year nap. He felt slightly groggy, but it had been a blink to someone sleeping, especially a person who didn't remember sleeping. 'He doesn't have to be so chintzy.'

He'd nicked more than his fair share of 'bits of supper', but who was counting?

He darted around the corridor corner, slowing his dash to a light jog as he entered the main area of the castle. Things were bustling as usual, servants and visitors, but there was something a bit odd about it all. He frowned slightly and peered toward the huge windows that peered outward onto the castle's expansive lawn.

What was that? A hedge? He didn't remember a hedge being there.

...Hold on. It was moving.

Hugh stopped short, nervously swiping a hand through his mop of dirty-blond hair. Others had noticed, were murmuring to one another, before one servant by the doors to the castle decided to open up and have a look.

An enormous towering wall, covered in blooming roses—and were those skeletons stuck in it?!—was shrinking down slowly. It was obvious that it had once reached up further, had probably encased the castle in some messed-up foliage dome of death, but it was shrinking slowly but surely, sending skeleton bones bleached from the sun rattling to the cobblestones and grass.